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Ted Talk Outline

Alright, so my paradigm shift has shifted a little bit since I last proposed the idea.

Originally, I had wanted to focus on STEM field education and how it has become one of the top priorities of the U.S. Because of this focus, people have been gently steered away from non-STEM subjects such as history or literature due to the available positions in the job market, or lack there of such jobs.

However, after doing some research, I am changing my thesis to include the shift of education itself throughout its existence and particularly how it went from originally being a key to an individual’s survival, completely based on the individual to obtain and use properly, to something that our superiors and government has considered and taken over, now requiring individuals to meet certain standards in our school systems and influencing our children to follow certain career paths that ultimately will contribute to the power, wealth, and international notoriety of the country itself.

So basically, education has changed from an individual focus to a collective, “how can I better society” focus.

Now for the outline!

**Note: I still need to work out the kinks and cite all my sources… will update when completed.**

Intro:

*First Slide*

Education. That’s why we’re all here, at college, isn’t it? To receive an education in a field we’re most passionate about, and someday, hopefully, we’ll be able to make a living in that field doing what we love every single day…

What is education? Different ways of defining it, understanding it, etc.

*Second Slide*

Take a historical approach – education is a result of cognitive evolution.

For our nomadic ancestors, education meant discovering things about one’s environment through personal experience with hands-on situational learning that, in some cases, may have been the difference between life and death.

The things learned were very applicable to daily life – immediate use of knowledge such as which plants are poisonous when eaten, touched, etc.

No need for writing, reading, history, mathematics — not relevant to the lifestyle.

Everything a person learned was completely up to the child’s parents or environment, and only the immediately useful information was stored and passed along.

——

Eventually, nomadic lifestyles gave way for agrarian cultures to settle on the land and create communities that would be built to last for centuries.

People now had the luxury of consistent food, water, and shelter sources and could focus their time and energy on thought and written word – and education

Ancient Greece and Rome – well known for their philosophical and mathematical contributions to society [will expand on this]

Still, education was relatively informal, skills and trades were more highly regarded because of useful production of tools

——

Elizabethan era — allows for the arts to flourish [will expand on this]

European colleges and universities [expand on this]

Centuries pass; formal education is available to society’s elite and wealthy, until…

As new scientific discoveries were made, education was changed to accommodate these findings and to make sure that students were being taught the most widely-accepted, accurate information

School systems still emerging, not entirely standardized education, farming still a largely popular occupation

WWII highlighted the importance of a country’s ability to technologically advance faster than other nations in order to be a decent source of competition for power

Post-WWII – Tensions increase as U.S. and U.S.S.R. prepare to enter the Cold War

*Fifth Slide*

MAJOR SHIFT: Sputnik

Sputnik launched a huge movement toward STEM fields in order for the U.S. to be able to compete with the Soviet Union in defensive and offensive tactics, sustainability, and overall achievement for humankind

This sparked a push for STEM fields that the government has been trying for decades to get their citizens interested in, from offering scholarships to minorities, to highlighting the economic opportunity in the job market vacancies

These incentives function as great motivators for the individuals, but the ulterior motive to education’s promotion of STEM (and now STEAM, which includes Art and design) is the government’s knowledge that the more people are educated in STEM fields, the “greater” their contribution to society will be.

Still a work in progress, and I have to figure out how to wrap up the talk in my conclusion, but this is basically the general idea of my Ted Talk.

Please let me know if anything comes across as unclear or if you think I could add something in particular!

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One thought on “Ted Talk Outline”

I think that expanding from STEM becoming a top prioirty to the development of prioritizing it through education is definitely a good switch. You clearly provide good and relevant background history on how we got here today. At the end I am interested in hearing your view on this change and maybe some ethos through stating your experience with it. I feel like your presentation is very history heavy and leads to more STEM ideas, but your goal is to talk about how education has become more collective. To make that clearer I would adviseyout to at several points throughout the talk, bring the audience back with a statement about how collective or individual a certain point in history was with education. I do like how you start at the beginning, but also make sure your talk doesn’t become too bottom heavy. With the time limit I would make sure that you leave enough time at the end to get your ideas and enough emphasis on the current state in. It is easy to get caught up in all the things that went into the change and forget to actually address it. Other than those suggestions I think you came across as knowledgable and your presentation seems to have a clear flow to it.